An Overdue Analysis

So I'm going to the Broncos game tomorrow and I'm pumped (but not like Romo). It's against the Raiders - the team Denver fans love to hate. At the same time, the Raiders are a team that many Denverites have embraced. The Denver Post did a cover story on faithful Raider fans living and working amongst us tried and true Broncos fans. It's a peculiar phenomenon really, but not so inexplicable. Many folks choose to standout by embracing the Other, and when it comes to football the Raiders are definitely 'the Other.' This season the Raiders are a struggling Other. They come in to Mile-Hi as one of the most inept teams in the AFC. Their record is bad. Their coach is bad. Their QB is bad. Their owner is. . . .well you know. Their star wide-receiver was supposed to be Michael-Jackson-Bad but turned out to be just plain-old-mediocre-bad. It's been a frustrating year for Raiders fans in the Bay area as well as in Denver. Just as well, I say. Let the Raiders-traitors watch in futility as the Broncos dominate every aspect of the game en route to the playoffs and glory.

Slow down, you might say. Watch out for that hitch in your giddy-up pard'ner, you might suggest. Don't the Broncos tend to revert to infantile mediocrity whenever Oakland comes to town? Truth-be-told, the answer is yes...occasionally. To be sure, the Mastermind has more or less owned the Raiders for most of his tenure as Broncos head-coach. But every now and then the Raiders sneak up and bitch-slap Denver. It's like matching up against the Ravens but in more mythic terms. The Raiders seem to bring it hard against the Broncos when Denver is the odds-on favorite. I've never understood it myself. Several years ago, a surging Broncos team gave up the proverbial goat against the Rich-Gannon-led Raiders. Gannon completed something like 4,092 straight passes and the Raiders stunned the Broncos in prime-time. Last year, the Raiders came in late and pulled out a victory in a snowy game that Denver should have been put away early and easily. The quality of the team doesn't seem to matter in most cases - it's just the situation. There's no logical reason for the Raiders to win tomorrow, but logic has little to do with deciding games in the NFL. Broncos fans should be wary.

Of course, my significant other has always said that I'm a pessimist and perhaps it's true. But as Joseph Campbell would remind us, mythology has a way of cutting across the boundaries of reality and shaping our world in beautiful and scary ways. Let's hope that tomorrow's game is more beautiful than scary. In a perfect world tomorrow's game would be a tune-up, a time to work out the kinks for our last game against the Chargers as well as our playoff matchups. But the world is not perfect, and neither are the Broncos. They need to win to keep ahead of the Bengals for the first-round bye. The Beloved Men in Orange should play with a sense of urgency tomorrow. They should win 41-13. . . .but I'll take a victory with any score.